>> New Halfling = Kender = Dragonlance = Dungeons & Dragons.
>>
>> Old Halfling = Hobbit = Lord of the Rings.
>>
>The comparison is of course not lost on me. I guess assuming I am free of
>any real or perceived possibility of being sued I would WANT people to make
>the connection. It just seemed such an odd and arbitrary decision. (perhaps
>made by lawyers not game designers...)
More like marketers. I didn't mean to imply legal issues. It's all about
selling yourself (and your movie, and your game system). People more closely
associate the kender-type halfling with D&D; Dragonlance Kender were wildly
popular as a race, and nobody really ever wanted to play the roly-ploy
hairy-footed halfling which was a throwback to Tolkein-esque hobbits.
The entire look and feel of the new system reflects what's worked for WotC
and D&D over recent years. Fewer starry-wizard hats, more tattoos
(Planescape). Fewer cheerful paladins, more grim-faces, gaunt bards. Fewer
cute and cuddly halflings, more svelt and nimble kender.
Tis all about marketing.
And it worked.
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"Moralists have always wondered helplessly why Poe's 'morbid' tales need
have been written. They need to be written because old things need to die
and disintegrate, because the old write psyche has to be gradually broken
down before anything else can come to pass. Man must be stripped even of
himself. And it is a painful, sometimes a ghastly process."
-- D.H. Lawrence, on E.A. Poe
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